Kemira Oyj (KEMIRA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

July 16, 2021

Nasdaq Helsinki FI Materials Chemicals earnings 47 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Mikko Pohjala

executive
#1

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Kemira's Q2 2021 Results Webcast. My name is Mikko Pohjala from Kemira's Investor Relations. And with me here today, I have our President and CEO, Jari Rosendal; as well as our CFO, Petri Castren. Earlier today, we published our Q2 results and reported strong revenue growth. Today, as is the tradition, we'll start with a brief overview of the quarter by Jari, followed by Petri, after which you'll have the chance to ask questions, either via the audio line or then via the webcast tool. Without much further ado, I'll hand it over to Jari.

Jari Rosendal

executive
#2

Thanks, Mikko. Welcome on my behalf also. Second quarter was a continuation to a good start in Q1. Despite the challenging raw material and logistics environment, Kemira organization has performed really well. Market demand for our products and services has been good and improving while we've chosen our strong revenue growth. Input costs are going up, but so are the sales prices, which are starting to show in the numbers. Sales price increases are going through nicely as customers are more worried about getting the products availability, and the impact of agreed price increases come with a lag, so -- but we do have some evidence in the numbers that price increases are starting to show. Added sales volume and sales price increases compensated more than the increase of the input costs. So let's look at the summary of Q2. Strong demand continued and growth was strong, but not only year-on-year, but also compared sequentially to Q1. As said, raw materials are up and availability is easing, but still some bottlenecks, especially in North America. Sales prices are going through and compensating more than the variable cost increase. And production line in U.S. and South Korea is ramping up. Outlook for the year is unchanged. Then looking at the figures for Q1, main figures. Revenue, EUR 658 million, up from EUR 606 million in Q1 and clearly up organically 16% year-on-year. Operative EBITDA, EUR 107 million and 16.3% margin, which is a good achievement. All market segments grew. Oil & Gas recovery is strong, but other areas grew also. We did settle a legacy legal dispute, which I'm very pleased about. It did affect our net profit in this quarter. It is a historic event, and I'm glad that we have it now out of the way. The event is before Kemira time from the '90s. Then Pulp & Paper, a good quarter. Pulp, board and tissue demand continued strong, and therefore, the chemicals from us -- for those applications. Printing and writing continued to improve sequentially. Sales price increases going through in Pulp & Paper, and we have been able, despite the challenging raw material situation, keep the customers running, and no disruptions there. APAC growth really strong, and that's actually a comparable number or close to comparable number year-on-year. The South Korean polymer investment comes at a good time now and is starting up as we speak and starting to ramp up. We're also considering adding ASA sizing product capacity to our Chinese plant in Nanjing. Pulp & Paper revenue was EUR 378 million with a EUR 58 million of operative EBITDA. A good result from the team. As said, price increases come with a lag. Then Industry & Water, very good quarter. Oil & Gas clearly recovered. Water business is very strong. I'd like to emphasize that the water business is very strong and has been very strong. Municipal water market, solid and industrial market, gradually recovering. Sale market continue in recovery. Margins still not even close to where we want it to be. So more work is needed in that, but the volumes start to be there. Raw material availability for the polymers has been an issue in North America, but gradually improving. Oil & Gas sales prices are going through, but also in water treatment, prices are being corrected to the right level. But it takes a bit of time for Oil & Gas to get their margins up. I&W revenue, EUR 279 million with a 17.7% margin which is an excellent outcome in these circumstances. As said, polymer raw material prices, especially under pressure, but added volumes and sales prices more than compensated for the input cost increases in I&W. Strong continued performance from I&W. Then a bit more on Oil & Gas. I also already mentioned that shale is coming back. WTI oil price is a bit over $70 at the moment. Volume is back, but pricing not satisfactory yet. The team is working on that on a daily basis. CEO market, really good and steady. And there, we have mostly formula pricing, so input cost goes into the formula. Oil sands tailings in Alberta, Canada started in April. Volumes are back in a more normal level. They were curtailing last year. And here, we also, in polymers, have formula pricing, so that's correcting itself as it goes. As you can see from the bar chart, EUR 66 million of revenue in Q2. And when you think of FX, of U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar, we start to be close to pre-COVID levels from a volume and revenue point of view, not from a profitability point of view. Added EPM capacity, U.S. coming online, really at a perfect time with the best cost point and efficiency as it's a new line, and that's ramping up, bit hampered of raw material availability, but everything is looking good. Then a bit more of a long-term look and strategic look of where we are and what we intend to do. We have made systematic work last years to fix the fundamentals, and we are fundamentally stronger and more agile to react to the changes in the marketplace. We want to continue to grow in pulp, packaging and tissue, which is in high demand today and will be also in the future. Megatrends, consumer behavior and regulations are also supporting growth in those areas. We also want to grow in water treatment, especially in APAC. Bio-based products, support recyclability, biodegradability is an area of development for us. Plastics will be there and will always be there, but the trend in packaging will go more to recyclable bio-based packaging. Plastic recycling by the way, is going to increase a lot, especially in Europe due to the regulation changes. But when you circulate plastics, it needs a lot of washing. There's a lot of impurities there. So that's going to be more water treatment needed in that process in the future. In our CMD, we announced also our ambition to grow more sustainability and focus even more to sustainability than Kemira has today. And one area is the bio-based product line where we want to increase our offering. The progress has been good, and we have now first test runs in sort of a pilot level in big machines with PHA, which is the Danimer partnership, and that's looking promising. So we will focus on 4 tracks of development in the bio-based arena. First, we obviously sell the products and push the products that we already have in our portfolio. And as a reminder, our recent investment in China for the AKD wax for added capacity and then backward integration in the manufacturing process is a bio-based thing and sort of supporting this. But obviously, it was a product that this was already in our portfolio. We just increased the capacity, and we are undisputed #1 in world capacity in AKD wax. Second track is to develop our products from a fossil feedstock to more bio-based feedstock as a dropping product, meaning that we can produce those mainly polymer type of products in our own today's assets and the customers can also, with testing, drop it into their machines right away. Third track is to go through R&D, which is a longer track and develop new chemistries from new feedstocks, and the Danimer example is one of those. And the fourth track is longer term. We monitor the market, what's happening in early research or in other application areas than our areas and look at what we can adapt from there and, again, develop new ways of developing bio-based products. So we have a good start into the bio-based, and we are very much on track, but it does take time, especially track 3 and not to talk about 4. And here's a busy slide. I'm not going to read it for you, but you can look at it later. It gives you a sort of a timeline and the roadmap on how we envision -- how the growth story is going to go. On the top, the green dots, you can see the expansion investments that we have announced and are ongoing, and there will be more. On the bottom side, on the gray dots, you can see the bio-based roadmap and how that goes in steps and what timelines you can expect for us to drive to develop that side of business and grow our bio-based revenue and portfolio. As a final slide from me, a summary of what we're focusing this year, continuing -- so continuing, obviously, mitigate COVID-19. Situation is not getting easier, actually going to the worst direction in many countries, so we need to keep our people and stakeholders safe, secure our operations and deliveries to our customers. We continue to mitigate the impacts of the higher input costs. We have increased focus on profitable growth, and we maintain good cost control. Bio-based, I talked about, so that's a high-focus on our agenda at the moment, and we want to drive our plants efficiently and ready to meet the increased demand out there and be agile, so that we can capture the business that is out there and get it into our revenue. And we continue to complete our strategic investment projects and ramp them up when they're in that phase. I'll conclude my portion here and ask Petri to give more color on the financials for Q2.

Petri Castrén

executive
#3

Thank you very much, Jari. Typically, I like to open these sessions with what I believe are the key points in each report. Today, I believe they are the raw material increase. This was quite strong, but this should not have come as a surprise to anyone. I think, the second key point is really that our sales prices increases, which Jari talked about, and combination that -- with that -- with the volume increase actually more than offset the quite significant raw material inflationary pressure that we experienced. Third one, which I'd like to point out is that while the cash flow was -- operating cash flow was somewhat on the weak side, there are very good reasons behind that, logical explanations. The growth and the inflationary pressure is actually tying up temporarily more capital into net working capital, into inventory and into receivables. And I'll talk about -- more about that in a minute. So quite a dramatic recovery in revenue and volumes now in Q2. Reported revenue was up by 13%. And actually behind that is the organic growth of 16%, and that was mostly volume. Sales increase impact was 2%. But actually, there was a little bit of the negative impact from traded caustic soda. So if we were sort of excluding that, the price impact would have been about 3%. Oil & Gas, biggest recovery in volumes and revenue, and Jari talked about that. But I think equally important is that the recovery in volumes was widespread. It actually impacted all businesses globally. On the profitability bridge here, the EUR 43 million, significant number from the inflationary pressures from higher cost of raw materials, and, to a lesser extent, transport costs or logistics cost in broader sense. But again, as I said, equally significant, if not more, is that we were more than -- we were able to more than offset this with the combination of price impact and the sales volume increases. And talking about the price impact in -- for comparison purposes in Q1, this price was still negative EUR 13 million, and now it reverted to positive EUR 12 million. Volume impact and the raw material price impact hide a little bit of the smaller items in this bridge. But I'm quite happy and pleased about the fixed cost management, only EUR 2 million increase from prior year, and that's clearly below the rate of inflation that we are seeing, so we are managing the fixed costs quite well. Travel costs are one contributor to that. They continue at a very, very low rate as business travel is very limited. FX, currency impact, was a negative EUR 3 million on the profitability bridge. And again, this is pretty much in line with the EUR 10 million guidance that we gave at the beginning of the year for the prevailing rates, and the prevailing rates are roughly where we were at the beginning of the year. We announced in July 8 that we had reached a settlement with CDC for the last of the 3 old infringement claims stating more than 20 years ago. The total settlement value was EUR 22.75 million, and we booked an increase of EUR 11.25 million to an existing provision in Q2. This whole amount, EUR 23 million, will be paid now in Q3. And as Jari said, this claim precedes Kemira's time as owner of Finnish Chemicals. Originally, there were three claims: two covering hydrogen peroxide; and now this one claim covering sodium chlorate. Anyway, as I said, this was the last of the 3 claims. And while, particularly, I'm not happy about paying this amount, we can be pleased that we are setting this uncertainty behind us and getting over it. The previous two claims were settled in 2014 and 2017 for a total sum of EUR 31 million, approximately. We also booked another roughly EUR 4 million provision for site closure where cleanup activity is progressing. The chart on the right here shows the sort of a quick turnaround in raw material prices, again, EUR 43 million increase year-on-year, and the speed of the rise is perhaps better understood when one compares it to the chart on the left and the left is looking at last 12 months when the right -- chart on the right is comparing to last quarter versus the previous quarter -- or the year ago quarter. And so, the average prices, both sales prices and the raw material costs, are still below of the preceding 12-month period time. And that's actually visible from the fact that both of these Dutch end points on the left curve are still below the horizontal zero line. So again, just demonstrating the suddenness and the quickness of the inflationary pressures that have come about our surface now during 2021. Also, one word of caution when one reads this chart. This chart is always done with constant volumes, so ignores the volume impact. So again, this quarter, we were able to offset the inflationary pressures with the volume increase. Conversely, last year, 2020 when we were in a COVID-related downturn, we saw some benefit from the raw material costs, but that did not all come through to the P&L, because the volumes declined at the same time. And as a reminder, it is sort of quite evident from these charts that the sales prices tend to follow with a 1- to 2-quarter lag, the changes in price curves, raw material price curve studies. Moving to cash flow comments. Because of this market turnaround, both the quantity and the value of our inventories continue to increase during the quarter. Now the value of inventory, a total value of inventory is EUR 38 million higher than it was in December 2020. But it's also important to note that well over half of that is caused by FX currency changes and the value of that inventory and to a much smaller extent from the volume of increase, volume of inventories. In fact, we have actually reduced inventory or improved inventory efficiency by reducing the days inventory outstanding by more than 10 days from a year ago period and a further 4 days during the '21. So in that sense, our inventory efficiency is actually in good level. We can even argue that inventory levels are quite low because of the raw material availability issues. Similarly, our receivables are up about EUR 40 million from December, again, reflecting higher volumes, higher sales volumes, but the inventory turnover -- I'm sorry, receivable turnover has remained good and at a stable rate. So I'm not worried about the receivable quality. I'm not really worried about the temporary network built during the first half, particularly as we know that once this sort of accelerated period will be over, this net working capital buildup will sort of stop and possibly even revert itself if the -- once we come to a deflationary environment, which will eventually will be there. Regarding CapEx. So far, we have been sort of spending relatively modestly on CapEx, so only about EUR 60 million versus our EUR 200 million guidance for the year. However, we still expect that the CapEx spend rate will accelerate during the second half, and we will land approximately EUR 200 million CapEx spend for the full year. Gearing capital efficiency, as we look at it from operating return on capital employed, ROCE, remained at 11.9%, which is very close to what I see as a very good or good 12% level. Pulp & Paper efficiency continues to improve towards the target rate, whereas in I&W, we have now significant assets under construction, particularly the Mobile expansion plant, which dilutes the return on capital efficiency ratio. As noted and as noted by Jari, that facility is now coming online. And with the ramping up production in the next quarters, it will start to contribute to this ratio and to the profitability over the next quarters. Balance sheet, really no news during the quarter. Leverage, well within our financial target range. Outlook. Like Jari noted, we have kept outlook unchanged. Also the assumptions that are behind the outlook, they are the same. I think the only change is the tense of the verb, so now we can see that the markets are recovering. We don't any more need to see that we expect the markets to recover, and this has been visible during Q2. And importantly, we expect that this recovery will continue through the year. Even as the COVID and the Delta variants cause some tail risk to macro environment, we still are quite optimistic about the overall market as we see. With that, I'm done with my remarks, and we're ready to move to the Q&A session. Operator, please?

Operator

operator
#4

[Operator Instructions] We have a first question from Martin Roediger from Kepler Cheuvreux, Research Division.

Martin Roediger

analyst
#5

I have a few questions. First of all, as the worst of the pandemic is almost over, and you see that volumes are strongly recovering and price -- selling prices get traction, what is holding you back to lift your guidance for 2021? That is my first question. My second question is on for modeling purposes. I understood that volumes in Q2 were up by 14% and selling prices up by 2%. Can you indicate whether one segment had a bigger pricing effect than the other? And if so, which one of that was having a higher selling price increase of 2%? And finally, on Chart 14, regarding this drag between the selling price -- variable costs and selling prices, was the majority of that drag in the Pulp & Paper segment? That was my third and final question.

Jari Rosendal

executive
#6

Well, I'll start, and I'm not sure if I captured all the questions. First of all, I think as a policy, we don't speculate why we don't do something. We explain if we do a reason -- so if we change guidance, then we explain why we changed guidance. I don't think we should be speculating why we don't. I referred to some of the uncertainties in the market, and we sort of overall see that the volumes are increasing. We see that the prices are increasing. We don't know exactly what will happen to the raw material costs. They are still on an inflationary rate possibly peaking, but it's a world with a possibility, so we don't know yet. So that's perhaps a bit on the comment regarding the business today. Regarding the sales prices, we are getting them through across the board. It's equally -- perhaps we have a higher share of annual contracts in Pulp & Paper, so perhaps relatively the bigger impact on price increases is in Industry & Water. And remember, industry water, particularly oil and gas, is predominantly polymers where the cost pressures are perhaps the more significant. So there's perhaps has been even more need for higher raw material -- I'm sorry, price increases in I&W and particularly in polymer business, but it's really across the board, I would say. Sorry, Martin, I forgot the third one.

Martin Roediger

analyst
#7

That was on the chart on Page 14, where you show that the drag between the variable costs and the selling prices. And here, I just wanted to understand if the drag was -- this is, of course, calculated based on stale volumes. So what's this drag primarily in Pulp & Paper, or was there also a drag in Industry & Water?

Jari Rosendal

executive
#8

More in pulp and paper, which is a slower ship to turn. As Petri said, in Oil & Gas, we're sort of -- in shale, we're sort of almost market-to-market sort of spot type of pricing with agreed volumes. And then we have formula pricing in oil sands and CEOR, so they correct themselves automatically. And in Pulp & Paper, the contracts might have been negotiated already, but they haven't kicked in. So that's why in my talk, I said that they will be coming but they're not there yet in their full force plus new negotiations are ongoing all the time.

Petri Castrén

executive
#9

So Martin, if you take a look at the material that we have in the appendix, we actually detail how the -- what's the share of long-term contract and fixed price contracts. So I think that pretty much explains why there is a lag. We have a lot of annual -- 1-year fixed price contracts. So basically, from a banking terms, we have a sort of a variable cost environment that has a shorter duration than the duration of our sales price -- sales contracts.

Operator

operator
#10

Next question from Robin Santavirta from Carnegie.

Robin Santavirta

analyst
#11

Related to the Pulp & Paper division, you have very strong organic growth of 9% and if I then sort of would exclude the graphic paper segment, it seems as basically the pulp and the paperboard, tissue business is growing double digit, which is -- I know demand for those segments is good, but is this really now reflecting end product demand, or is there some inventory sort of fill up situation in the Pulp & Paper division?

Jari Rosendal

executive
#12

I would say for the customers, and I can't speak for them, they know it better, but what I hear is that this is sort of genuine demand at the moment. But obviously, the pipeline is short, so probably some of the distributors are trying to build up some inventory also for any disruptions. And as we have seen, transportation disruptions can easily happen. So at the moment, it's just a recovery demand from the market in packaging. A lot of it is food and normal grocery store and electronics packaging that is really on a high demand. Also, industries are coming back and components are backed and so on. And obviously, our Pulp is driven quite a bit by China because of the green fence rule kicked in, and they can't bring in recycled paper and boards. So they are more now demanding virgin pulp. Chinese consumer sort of rebound is huge, and that's also driving this. So I don't see that there's sort of a lot of stocking in the value chain yet can be that it starts to happen at some point to even out availability issues.

Robin Santavirta

analyst
#13

That is clear. The second question I have is related to the industry and what the division now -- a good quarter for all of that division. But when I look at the EBITDA margin, it's also good that the operative at 17.7%, actually better than you had in 2019. Still I think I heard you say, Jari, that you're not totally happy with the Oil & Gas business profitability. But there, again, you have the formula pricing sort of setup. So what should we expect margin-wise from the industry and water division going forward?

Jari Rosendal

executive
#14

Well, last year, the demand on all of the 3 sort of main categories of oil and gas business was down. And therefore, the oil and gas business was making very poor revenue and profitability. And now the revenue is back and the profitability is up modestly and not killing value anymore, but it's far where we want it to be in shale. So that needs to recover. But this only indicates how strong our water business in North America and EMEA is and our small water business in APAC also, so that has been compensating for this. Also last year, second quarter, the industrial water segment was down, and now that's back again. So those are the dynamics within I&W. But water business is really strong for us and has been.

Robin Santavirta

analyst
#15

Jari, that is clear. And then a final question related to input costs or variable costs. Now I know it's anybody's guess exactly what happens with many of those items going forward. But if we would sort of remain at today's level in terms of prices, am I right expecting that still Q3 on variable cost is -- would be then up quarter-on-quarter? Obviously, you probably will have higher sales prices as well, but in terms of variable costs?

Jari Rosendal

executive
#16

We expect a couple of percentage points sequentially in Q3 and then are estimating, but it is -- as you said, it's an estimate, and I guess that it then starts to flatten out and ease in Q4. And we might be seeing in some products like petrochemical products, as we speak, this couple of next months a peak coming through and then in easing off as more capacities are coming online. I'm not that concerned of the small inflation that is coming in. I'm more concerned that we get the availability back that we need because we're missing out on a bit of business that could be adding to these numbers that we saw from Q2.

Operator

operator
#17

Next question from Anssi Kiviniemi from SEB.

Anssi Kiviniemi

analyst
#18

I have three of them. I will take them one by one, if that's okay. Starting with the Pulp & Paper, could you talk a little bit more about the earnings dynamics in the division? I mean, strong organic growth, still earnings declined. Is there anything else particular in the Q2 results and a lack in sales price increases and higher input costs, or are those the main drivers behind the, let's say, little bit lower margins and earnings?

Jari Rosendal

executive
#19

Yes. So you read it the correct way. So demand on all fronts is good in pulp, chemicals, in packaging board, tissue and also printing, and writing is recovering very nicely, especially for us, not necessarily for the whole market, but we have a quite strong customers that we serve. It's basically just the input costs going up faster than we can react in increasing the sales prices. So basically, it's that lag that is going there. And the team is doing a good job in fixing the prices. Obviously, always a tough negotiation with our customers. But we've been able to serve them very well during the difficult 18 months that we have behind us, so that also supports that we've been keeping them running for them to get a discount from us or having a day or a week shutdown because of no chemicals is much more expensive for them. So it's just the lag between the rapidly increased input costs, like Petri said, and then the lag in going to the sales prices, but that's going well on the sales side.

Anssi Kiviniemi

analyst
#20

Okay. Then the second one is on Industry & Water. We are talking about the earnings growth quarter. So could you clarify a bit how much of the earnings growth came from Oil & Gas and how much from the water treatment business? Just to understand the dynamics better. And also, we are currently seeing a nice uptick in oil and gas activity and still you have quite low volumes. So could you give us some kind of indications? What's the earnings potential in Oil & Gas business? What's the upside after you have reached full capacity in your recent U.S. investment?

Jari Rosendal

executive
#21

Well, not really quantifying those. But we're far from the profitability and margins where we were in 2019. Revenue starts to be there, but not the profitability yet in Oil & Gas. So some improvement there sequentially. But water business is strong. And as there also, volumes grew, I think the water business is a bigger contributor than the oil and gas, but oil and gas is starting to contribute also nicely.

Anssi Kiviniemi

analyst
#22

Great. Then the third question is a little bit more strategic. Given your capacity additions in Asia in water treatment, could you talk a little bit on your ambitions? I understand that you're investing in Pulp & Paper water treatment. But now, you are also investing in wastewater treatment. So could you talk a little bit about the opportunity in the coming years?

Jari Rosendal

executive
#23

Yes. So Asia Pacific water treatment is growing roughly 6% to 10% a year for chemicals. And we've been sort of having a foot in the door in the last years and fixing the fundamentals in the Western world and now we have those in place. So now it's time to sort of look at that, how can we increase the water business also in Asia Pacific. The South Korea dry pan plant will be mostly retention polymers for packaging board and paper, but there will be volumes going to water treatment. So the first time we have local capacity there for both segments. Up till now, we have been bringing in the dry pan from Europe and with these transportation costs, especially today, we start from behind. So some comes from there. You also saw an announcement from us that we are adding water treatment chemicals capacity to our AKD site in China, the new one, so some volumes from there. And basically, it's just getting our hand on volumes of product. The market is there, and we have a good reputation for the water treatment. So it's a question of how do we partner? How do we do what? Even M&A is in our mind, but not imminent.

Anssi Kiviniemi

analyst
#24

If I remember correctly, in history, you have talked about the wastewater treatment potential in Asia. But due to lack of profitability capabilities in the segment, that has not been perhaps the most attractive segment. So has something changed, or are you currently testing the market and see what we can do?

Jari Rosendal

executive
#25

We had a, years ago, profitability issue, then we got the profitability in the APAC water treatment to a very good level. And now then this raw material and transportation cost has, I would say, short term impacted it. And -- but that's sort of a temporary thing, we can fix that. So we look at the water treatment segments and customers where we can capture accepted amount of value.

Operator

operator
#26

There is no more questions for the moment. [Operator Instructions]

Mikko Pohjala

executive
#27

There's more questions from the webcast tool. This is also related to raw materials. A bit of a continuation what we discussed previously. So could you comment on what -- how material were the raw material supply issues? What is the outlook on that side? And what was the impact of buying raw materials on spot prices?

Jari Rosendal

executive
#28

Okay. So I mentioned North America. So the Texas winter storm in February still is impacting. So some refineries, for instance, in the -- in that space are still in force majeure. But the allocation of volumes to us is improving, but it's not up to where we want it to be yet. Also sometimes, you can get your hands on the raw material, but then you can't get your hands on the logistics. So just the lack of truck drivers, for instance, is a big thing. We had similar things on maintenance backlog in Europe, but Europe is now getting much better in getting volumes to us. We had to buy on spot and versus our contracted prices, which also are many times formula prices significantly more expensive. And then we have in the EUR 40 million to EUR 43 million bridge of increased input cost as we have been selling higher volumes than our contracted raw material deliveries. We've been always also buying on spot not just because of lack of raw materials, but because they are over our contracted volumes. So we get good orders from the customers. We buy on spot a bit less margin, but still a good business, because it leverages our fixed cost.

Mikko Pohjala

executive
#29

Good. Many thanks, Jari. And I believe there's one more question on the audio line, so we turn back to the operator.

Operator

operator
#30

Next question from Harri Taittonen from Nordea.

Harri Taittonen

analyst
#31

Harri Taittonen, Nordea. Just following up on the -- I mean, this sort of 14% increase in volumes. And sort of can you give a flavor on the -- how big is the gap to say this periodical maximum? You suggest that there are some sort of concrete availabilities which are kind of preventing from getting the full volume potential. But just in terms of like the technical availability of capacity, how far roughly are you from that maximum level?

Jari Rosendal

executive
#32

Yes. So I actually don't have a number for that, Harri, as you know. We do have batch processes, so it depends on what the product mix is. Sometimes, a certain product can take several days to -- for a batch and then another product a day. So the theoretical capacity is hard to calculate. But we still have capacity. It's more been on the raw material side. And it's not always the raw material, but transportation times have significantly increased. So product and raw material in transit takes longer. So that's also hindering making the deliveries as fast even if we have taken the orders in. So this time lag and availability lag and then the transport also to the customer from our side. So then it goes to revenue recognition and these types of things. But so far, I'm not worried about production capacity. But as I said, we are planning, for instance, ASA capacity increase, so that indicates that we can see something coming. And the ASA and AKD demand is on a really high level because of packaging.

Operator

operator
#33

There is no more question by audio.

Mikko Pohjala

executive
#34

All right. Many thanks. So this concludes our webcast. We thank you for participating. Thank you for the questions. And should there be any further questions after this, do reach out to me as we're happy to help. But with this, we wish you and all the participants a very happy summer. Thank you.

Jari Rosendal

executive
#35

Thank you.

Petri Castrén

executive
#36

Thank you very much.

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